


she don't got a lot to say (but there's something about her)

by savanting



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: ALL THE FLUFF, Chad Charming Is a Good Boy at Heart, Crew Mother Uma, Crew as Family, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, No Romance, One Shot, Post-Canon, Post-Descendants 3, friendship fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26150239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savanting/pseuds/savanting
Summary: Uma and Chad Charming (of all people!) share a heart-to-heart the night the Isle's barrier comes down. One-Shot.
Relationships: Chad Charming/Uma
Comments: 2
Kudos: 179





	she don't got a lot to say (but there's something about her)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own any Disney properties. And can I just SAY that I love Uma so much when I think of how she looks at her pirate crew as family and it gives me ALL THE FEELS. And Chad is a little duckling who needs a little tender loving care. FIGHT ME IF YOU DON'T THINK SO. Enjoy!!
> 
> Title comes from the lyrics of "Kiss the Girl" from _The Little Mermaid_ (Disney)

The sea sang a melody only she could hear. Uma may have been a sea witch’s daughter, but the ocean had cradled her with the waves as its lullabies in lieu of an embrace within her mother’s tentacles.

It was lonely now, staring out into the wide expanse of the landscape she knew so well, even with the comfort of knowing that the barrier between the Isle of the Lost and Auradon was finally gone. Fireworks overhead celebrated the sudden transition enacted by Mal – the villain kid who had defied all odds and now stood at a king’s side.

_A cute king,_ Uma allowed inside the confines of her head where no one would overhear. _But he loses so many points for being into that snide little—_

Well. Uma couldn’t really hold as much against Mal now. Maleficent’s daughter had kept her word to see that no lost boy or girl would ever have to stay chained to their villainous parent, and that was something even a pirate could respect.

Now, finally, everyone could have the choice to live on the mainland, in the kingdom of Auradon, to revel in all that had once been barred from villain kids. Now, a witch’s daughter could stand beside a princess and have the same opportunity. It wouldn’t be easy, but there was that wonderful freedom _to choose_.

But Uma did note how the Auradon kids gravitated away from the villain kids that so far had poured over the bridge to join in the celebrations. Clusters of villain kids laughed and danced, the sounds of whoops and cheers alighting at odd intervals, yet the pretty princesses in their gowns cast wide-eyed glances at the new interlopers, as if the Auradon crowd were afraid of pick-pockets and hidden weapons among the newcomers. Uma couldn’t help sneering at them since no one was bothering to look her way.

They all may have said they would accept a villain’s daughter as their queen, but these Auradon poseurs still had a long way to go before they would back up their words with hard-earned actions.

Uma left the balcony she had been overlooking, and she swept through the swaths of people, her presence largely unnoticed. When she had gotten through the gaggle of dresses and pockets, she smiled to herself: in her fingertips she held a slim gold bracelet she had nicked off a girl who had been in the middle of arguing with her boyfriend. It wasn’t Uma’s fault the plastic little Auradon girl had been too caught up in emotional drama to keep an eye on her wrist.

But the thrill was short-lived. Uma cast her glance back at the party-goers, familiar and unfamiliar faces alike going in and out of focus, and she was all alone. After Uma had dodged his kiss, Harry had been dragged off by a familiar-looking girl with ash-blond hair and a devious little smile that Uma knew Harry would probably be a sucker for. As for Gil and the rest of her crew, they were hanging out with Jay and some other Auradon kids who, to Uma’s surprise, actually looked comfortable among their former enemies.  


Uma hadn’t given much thought to her own surroundings because she had been so caught up in keeping an eye on her crew and making sure they were okay, so it shouldn’t have surprised her that she walked straight into a sturdy chest and arms that caught her shoulders before she could stumble and fall.

She was ready to rear back and snarl, _”Hey, watch it—”_ But this wasn’t the Isle. And someone would have probably pushed her to the curb there. Here, in Auradon, there were small mercies, like being helped up from the pavement when you had fallen.

“You okay there?” the guy asked. Uma looked up to see blue eyes that appeared friendly and a little too trusting. Blond curls sprang from his head in a way that looked casual but had obviously been styled beforehand with some type of hair product specific to Auradon.

Well. Uma had to admit Auradon had some other perks – like boys who didn’t know any better. They had never been taught to fear girls because girls here did not hide monsters inside their skins. Here, girls were pretty and sweet and nice – expected, harmless, nothing to fear.

Few Auradon boys yet knew to fear a girl like Uma.

“Oh, yeah,” Uma said, laughing a little to give the appearance that she was embarrassed to be caught by such a handsome boy. “Sorry about that. I was too caught up in the party to watch where I was going.”

The boy’s eyes scanned her face, and he didn’t seem to recognize her as the girl who had once tried to bewitch a king into loving her. Either Auradon had a short memory – Uma didn’t think _that_ was true, given the creation of the Isle of the Lost in the first place – or this boy was a bit…dim. “You look a little lost,” he said after a moment. “Are you from the Isle?”

_Oh, do you think?_

She couldn’t hide it: she was still dressed in her leather skirts, her turquoise hair in dreadlocks rather than the expected fashion of long straightened hair for girls in Auradon. Not that she would ever change. She wasn’t evil, but that didn’t mean she had to give up her familiar Isle styles and looks. “Yeah,” she said, offering a little laugh that she allowed to sound a bit self-conscious and even a bit flirty. “Just came over, in fact, to join in the celebration.”

“Ah,” the boy said. Then another burst of fireworks alighted overhead, and to her surprise the boy grasped her shoulder, his eyes scanning the sky as if the sudden explosion had…frightened him?

Well now. _That_ was interesting.

“You okay there?” she asked, fighting the urge to sound mocking as she echoed his words to her from just a few minutes ago. The boy’s blue eyes swiveled to her, and she almost felt sorry for him because she could tell there was something he was – struggling with. In her experience, people didn’t hide the ghosts of their pasts that well, especially in the mirrors that were their eyes. Her mother hadn’t given Uma an education on affection, but she had taught her daughter how to pinpoint people’s fears – and how to exploit them to best effect.

_”Poor unfortunate souls,”_ her mother had said, _”are just asking for what’s coming to them. Don’t make the mistake of pitying them, my little Uma.”_

But this boy’s eyes – they spoke to some misfortune Uma didn’t know yet. Maybe, if she probed a bit, then she could find out. Given a little time, Uma could wrestle truths out of the echoes within seashells.

“Sorry,” the boy said, shaking his head as his hand fell away from her shoulder. “Just a little – issue. With loud noise. Still dealing with that, in fact. Pay it no mind.”

Uma tried to tell herself she just wanted to ease her way into this boy’s trust – that really seemed all too willing already, if she had to admit – as she placed her hand upon his arm. “You look a little pale,” she said, and she wasn’t lying. “Maybe you should drink some water or something.” Then she gave a smile that she hoped was inviting. “Want to go find the refreshment table with me?”

It was a win for Uma that the boy nodded and allowed himself to be led away in search of drinks.

Easy enough, the refreshment table was located in the only quiet area in the vicinity. Everyone else was too busy partying to notice a few stragglers that had to go get punch to quench their thirst before rejoining the dancing mob. Uma even poured the glass of punch herself and handed it to the boy who, honestly, looked like he could have fainted right then and there. He grasped the glass and took a sip.

“You look rough,” she said, her filter slipping for a moment as she fell into Isle speak. That was something she would have said to one of her crew, not a prince she was trying to weasel – something, she didn’t know what yet – out of. She followed the little lapse by laughing. “I mean that in the best possible way, of course. You still look very handsome.”

Some color had returned to the boy’s face, but he coughed as if he had swallowed his punch down the wrong pipe. “Oh, uh, thank you,” he said, and Uma suddenly felt embarrassed. What, she hadn’t been lying! Mal had always told her that lying was a bad habit, even back on the Isle, and now Uma was quickly finding she was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t. Honestly—

“Sorry,” he said, coughing again. A smile began to curve on his lips, and she noted that he didn’t seem as shaken up as before. “I, uh, just realized I didn’t catch your name.”

_You never asked,_ she thought, feeling the urge to roll her eyes. She felt a bit annoyed, but she couldn’t decide if it was with the boy or with herself. _Some prince you are!_

But she could play a fun little game and not be a whit mean about it…

A lazy smile curved on Uma’s face as she began to feel like a cat playing with a squeaking mouse.

“It’s Vanessa,” she said, the lie slipping out as easily as if she had just uttered her true name. She held out a hand, and with his free hand he grasped hers without a second thought. He definitely was a prince since the next moment he dipped his head and brushed a kiss across her knuckles.

Uma could have laughed like a sea witch, but she wouldn’t spook the poor boy. Not yet.

Oh, this would be _fun_ indeed.

“Charmed,” he said. Then he straightened and laughed, setting down his glass of punch on the nearby table. “Easy enough for me, though, since my name’s Chad Charming.”

Uma’s eyebrows rose. _Well now._ “Charming?” she repeated, like she was a girl who didn’t know better. But Uma always knew best. “As in _Prince_ Charming?”

“Yeah,” he said, another easy laugh spilling from his lips, “Prince Charming _and_ Cinderella. That is, my parents.”

Uma pretended to look surprised, but inside she was laughing. _Oh, my dear prince, you are going to make my evening._

“Oh, pardon me,” she said, acting all ladylike and ducking into a curtsy. “I hadn’t realized you were a prince. And _royalty_ , of all things.”

The boy – no, _Chad_ just continued to grin. “That’s not necessary,” he said, waving his hand at her — like he didn’t enjoy a girl making herself smaller, meeker, for him. Uma supposed she wasn’t the only liar here.

Then he gestured to a stone bench set into the grass nearby. “Do you want to sit down for a bit?”

Uma bit back her cat-like grin before it could swallow up her face. “Sure,” she said, following his lead and settling down beside him on the bench. He let out a soft sigh that he probably thought she wouldn’t hear, but Uma had always had keen ears. She had usually always been the one to hear the soft sobs of crying kids who couldn’t sleep among her crew on the Isle.

Whatever Chad Charming was hiding, he obviously didn’t know how to hide it _well_. But he was a prince, not an Isle foundling. What did he really have to deal with that was so bad? A ball where every girl didn’t want to dance with him? Oh, the _horror_.

“Vanessa,” Chad said, his eyes staring straight ahead as if he couldn’t register anything else but whatever fog was ahead of him, “have you ever been in love?”

The patient smile slipped off of Uma’s lips as she looked at this prince in bafflement. Was he _serious_? And did he really think she would just spill her secrets – intimate secrets kept close to her heart, things she might never even utter to her own crew – just because he was a prince? Did he think she was just one of those girls who would fall all over him?

But there was something there in Chad’s gaze that…disarmed her. She felt like she was looking at someone who could have been _in_ her crew – that is, if she had allowed princes to join.

Uma’s gaze trailed to her feet and her scuffed boots. “Why do you ask?” she asked, her voice soft. She didn't know yet if she could answer his question herself, but she could listen to what he had to say. And maybe she would slowly find out why he had that haunted look deep in his eyes.

Chad took a steadying breath. “Someone _I_ loved became someone I didn’t recognize anymore,” he said. “And I still don’t know how to feel about that. What it says about her – and what it might say about me.”

Uma looked up and watched Chad swallow – and, to her bewilderment, she had the sense that he almost wanted to cry. But he swallowed again, his eyes blinking in fast succession as he cleared the tears away before they could spill out and betray him.

_Good man,_ she thought, feeling protective in spite of herself. Sure, her mother would have told her to find out this boy’s weakness and use it against him, but Uma was a crew mother who didn’t abuse the trust given to her. This boy, this prince, had granted her his trust even though he didn’t know her or her intentions. For that, he was braver than most boys she had ever met.

_By the sea, I’ve become such a damn sap,_ she thought, and she even felt the urge to roll her eyes at _herself_.

Finally, she broke the silence: “Do you still love her?”

Chad breathed out again. And then he laughed as if he were, finally, feeling a bit embarrassed about the direction of the conversation. “That’s the question, isn’t it. And I don’t know. _I don’t know,_ Vanessa.”

And then he laughed at himself, the sound so pitiful that she wouldn’t have blamed him for fighting the urge to cry again. And Uma felt an affection for him blossoming in spite of every fiber of what she had been taught as an Isle-born witch.

“Uma,” she said, tapping her boot against the ground.

Chad looked at her, uncomprehending. “Sorry?”

“Uma,” she said, her voice louder. “My name’s actually Uma. I’m sorry. I lied to you because – because – I don’t actually know why. Because I’m spiteful? Because I’m a witch? I don’t know, but I’m sorry. I know what you must think of trash like me—”

“Trash?” Now Chad sounded _really_ confused. “Whatever your name is, you’re _not_ trash. I mean, here you’re listening to some dumb good-for-nothing prince who got his heart broken.”

Uma had to laugh at that. And shake her head. “You’re not dumb,” she said.

“Oh, I know plenty of people who would argue with you there,” he said.

And then they looked at each other, really looked at each other for perhaps the first time that night. And they laughed.

“It’s nice to meet you, Uma,” he said after their laughter had subsided.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Chad,” she replied. Then, like a spark of intuition, she dared to ask: “Say, you ever think of joining a pirate crew?”

Chad’s eyes lit up, and she could tell his every boyhood dream was coming true in his mind’s eye. “Where do I sign up?”

Uma grinned – a real grin from her real self – and began to tell Chad Charming of all her hopes for life on the seven seas.

All things considered, it was a magical night that spoke only of more magical nights to come.


End file.
